


return

by lorspolairepeluche



Series: Fearsome Foursome [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Canon Event, Fall of Haven, Gen, Mother Giselle's Impromptu Church Choir, a first inkling of Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-25
Updated: 2016-11-25
Packaged: 2018-09-02 01:57:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8647354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lorspolairepeluche/pseuds/lorspolairepeluche
Summary: “We escaped the avalanche. Barely, perhaps, but we didn’t die.”
Saraan, Panna, Aiyan, and Halla struggle after Corypheus's attack and the avalanche that destroyed Haven. Wisdom comes from a place none of them thought it would.





	

Saraan, the hardiest of the four of them, is the first to awaken. She sits up in the snow and is immediately struck by just how _cold_ it is. The wind seems to pass right through her, and her first worry is that the others will freeze.

The others.

Saraan looks hastily around. The hilt of a two-handed sword, the end of a mage's staff—she breathes a sigh of relief for a moment until she realizes there is no sign of Halla. Is the human buried?

Saraan forces herself to her feet and shakes the snow from her horns, even tired as she is. She has to find Halla; she has to dig up Aiyan and Panna. They cannot lose each other now.

She goes for Aiyan first. The elf is small, thin—he's at most risk of succumbing to cold. She locates the crystal she saw through the storm still raging around them and digs furiously, unloading snow until Aiyan's face comes into view, a pallor showing under his tattoos. She grabs his narrow shoulders and pulls him up to a sitting position, his torso leaning against her. Snow falls from his loose hair. She can feel his breath faint on her shoulder, coming in tiny puffs of white mist. "Aiyan," she says, then again, shaking him, "Aiyan! Wake up! Aiyan!"

She feels him stir against her. "Saraan…" Aiyan slowly lifts his head. "What's happened? The snow covered me, and I—I passed out. What's going on? Where's the Elder One?"

"Gone, as far as I know," Saraan answers, holding him close. He's so cold… "We have to find Panna and Halla, and we have to get back to Haven."

"I thought we were going to die," Aiyan murmurs.

"If we don't get moving, we might still," Saraan replied. "I can see Panna's sword, but no sign of Halla."

"I can…" Aiyan struggles to sit up on his own, moving his hands as if gathering power before flicking them outward. A wave of flame coasts over the snow, melting some of it. Panna's sword hilt sticks further out now, and there's something there…it could be the pommel of one of Halla's knives. "Quick," Aiyan shivers. "Dig them up… Save them. Before…before it freezes. Before _they_ freeze.”

“Will you be all right?”

“I’m a mage,” Aiyan says, his voice a little stronger. “I can keep myself warm. Halla and Panna don’t have that ability.”

A fist punches up out of the snow, and Halla follows it with a roar of exertion. “Shit,” she snarls as she shoves snow off her with a vengeance. “It’s fucking _cold!_ ” She looks over at Saraan staring at her and softens. “We did it. Well, we did _something._ ” She shivers, rubbing her arms; she has barely any armor on. They didn’t have time to dress properly before rushing to battle. “Nice job with the trebuchet, anyway, even if you did bury us along with the enemy.”

“Would you rather the red templars and Venatori had overtaken Haven?” Saraan replies, helping Aiyan stagger to his feet.

“No, I just thought that the way you kicked the lever was quite—stylish.” Halla glances around. “Panna?”

“Still buried. There.” Saraan points, and Halla begins slogging through the two feet of snow to the last of their quartet. She unceremoniously grabs the hilt of the sword and pulls back on it, barely budging the body under it. With a short sigh, she sets to work digging out Panna. Slowly, the dwarf’s dark red hair comes into view, and finally, Halla heaves Panna up by the shoulders, rolling her over so she’s on her back.

“C’mon, wake up.” Halla taps Panna’s face experimentally, and the dwarf grunts.

“Five more minutes…”

“Oh, Maker,” Halla mutters. “Get _up_ , Panna, or I _will_ dump snow on your face.”

Panna comes to, scowling hard enough to scrunch up her pug nose. She takes in her surroundings, already shivering like the rest of them. “Shit,” she mutters. “Well, there goes our fucking victory.”

“We need to get back to Haven.” Aiyan’s voice is weak, and he wobbles as he tries to stand. Saraan catches him, scooping him up. He looks even smaller in her arms. “We have to get back,” he repeats. “They’re waiting for us.”

“Are we all still alive?” Saraan asks. She checks that Aiyan is still breathing—his eyes have slipped shut again, but he convulses with shivers every few seconds. Halla and Panna glance at each other, making sure, before looking back to Saraan and nodding. “Then we need to go,” Saraan says decisively. “They’ll be waiting for us, and I don’t want to make Josephine cry.”

—

Josephine fights back tears. _I am the Inquisition’s head diplomat. I must remain poised._ It is harder when she looks to either side of her, from the white line of Leliana’s mouth and the tight grip Cassandra has on her sheathed sword, to the way Cullen stares intently at the snow beyond the camp, as if he can bring the four survivors back to the Inquisition with sheer will.

Josephine stops herself before wondering at her word choice. _They are survivors,_ she insists to herself. _They have not died. They would not die. They have been through too much._

She looks down to where another group huddles together around a campfire. She notes, trying to get her mind off her fear, that there always seems to be one of them surreptitiously glancing out past the camp. Krem taps Iron Bull on the shoulder, hands him a mug of something that steams, and sits down to wait with them.

The camp outside the ruins of Haven is nearly silent, save for the groans of the wounded and dying. Everyone else is quiet, too quiet, waiting for their saviors to once again return home, triumphant, like they always have.

This time, it seems almost too much to hope for.

—

“Embers,” Halla says through her chattering teeth. “Still warm.” She hurries as much as she can back to the others. Saraan looks smaller than usual, hunched around Aiyan and trying to keep him and Panna as warm as possible. “We’re getting closer.” _We have to be,_ she didn’t say.

Saraan places her face in front of Aiyan’s and only lets out her own breath when his warms her cheek. “We keep going,” she decides. “Dawn’s not for hours; it’s only going to get colder.”

Panna’s breath is an icy cloud in front of her face as she sighs and starts forward again, dragging her strong legs through the snow to clear a path for the others. “We’d better be getting closer.”

“Wait.” Halla motions for the others to stop, peering through the swirling snow. “What’s that?”

—

“Commander!”

“What?” Cullen snaps, finally turning away from the front of the camp.

“Commander, the lookout reported in!” The soldier skids to a halt. “You’d better come, sir. There’s someone out there!”

Cassandra and Cullen are on their way in seconds, Leliana and Josephine following behind. Below, Varric is first to notice the movement, and he nudges Dorian next to him, nodding at the sudden absence on the hill. Soon, all of the survivors’ companions have started, slowly, hopefully, after the advisors, barely daring to think— _could it be?_

—

“It is…” Halla breathes. “It’s them!”

“There they are!” _Cullen._

“Thank the Maker!” _Cassandra_.

_We’re saved._ All the strength leaves Halla’s legs, and she sinks to the snow, exhaustion finally overcoming her. Her vision flickers, and the next thing she is aware of is someone’s arms lifting her up, pulling her arm around a pair of shoulders, supporting her. She forces herself to look around to the others. Saraan is carefully handing Aiyan off to Cassandra, with Dorian hovering over the exchange. Varric and Josephine check Panna over as the others arrive.

Finally, she lets herself look to see who helped her. “Cullen?”

His smile is tinged with relief in its attempted reassurance. “It’s going to be all right,” he promises as her head falls, exhausted, onto his shoulder. “You’ve returned to us. You’re safe now, Halla.”

Just before she passes out, Halla realizes, _He used my first name._

\--

“What would you have me do?” Cullen demands.

“We cannot simply ignore this!” Cassandra insists. “We must find a way!”

Halla winces before she opens her eyes and pushes herself into a half-sitting position.

“And who put you in charge?” Cullen sounds furious. “We need a consensus, or we have nothing!”

“Please, we must use reason!” Josephine implores. “Without the infrastructure of the Inquisition, we—“

“I can’t come from nowhere!” Cullen interrupts.

“She didn’t say it could.” Leliana rises to Josephine’s defense.

“Enough!” Cassandra roars. “This is getting us nowhere!”

“You’re awake.”

Halla turns to look beside her, where the other three survivors watch the war council argue. Aiyan is wrapped in a blanket in Saraan’s lap, and Panna leans against the Qunari’s side, dozing. “What’s going on?”

“They’ve been at it for hours,” Saraan says, nodding to the four advisors.

“They have the luxury thanks to you four.”

Halla looks to her other side. “Mother Giselle.”

“The enemy could not follow, and with time to doubt…we turn to blame. Infighting may threaten us as much as this Corypheus.”

Memories slam back into Halla—the confrontation over the trebuchet, being held in the air by her wrist, the snow covering them. “Do we know where Corypheus and his forces are?”

“We are not sure where _we_ are,” Mother Giselle answers. “Which may be why, despite the number of the forces he commands, there is no sign of him. That, or you are believed dead. Without Haven, we are thought helpless. Or he girds for another attack. I cannot claim to know the mind of that…creature. Only his effect on us.”

“If that thing is still out there, we need to move,” Halla says.

Saraan’s laugh is bitter. “Already tried that one. Where the hell would we go?”

Mother Giselle nods. “They are uncertain where. And there are…other questions. About you. Our leaders struggle because of what we survivors witnessed. We saw our defenders stand—and fall. And now we have seen them return. The more the enemy is beyond us, the more miraculous your actions appear, and the more our trials seem ordained. That is hard to accept, no? What we have been called to endure, what we, perhaps, must come to believe.”

“We escaped the avalanche,” Aiyan says, his voice weak. “Barely, perhaps, but we didn’t die.”

“Of course,” Mother Giselle agrees, “and the dead cannot return from across the Veil. But the people know what they saw, or perhaps what they needed to see. The Maker works both in the moment and in how it is remembered. Can we truly know the heavens are not with us?”

“You saw Corypheus,” Saraan says in a low voice so as to not wake Panna. “What do you think of his claims of assaulting the heavens?”

Mother Giselle folds her hands in her lap. “Scripture says magisters, Tevinter servants of false Old Gods, entered the Fade to reach the Golden City, seat of the Maker. For their crime, they were cast out as darkspawn. Their hubris is why we suffer Blight, and why the Maker turned from us. If such is the claim of this Corypheus, he is a monster beyond imagining. All mankind continues to suffer for his sin. If even a shred of it is true, all the more reason Andraste would choose someone to rise against him.”

“Corypheus said…he said…” Halla can’t bring herself to say it.

“He said it was empty,” Saraan finishes for her. “He said heaven was empty.”

“If he entered that place, it has changed him without and within,” Mother Giselle says quietly. “The living are not meant to make that journey. Perhaps these are lies he must tell himself, rather than accepting that he earned the scorn of the Maker. I know I could not bear such.”

“Mother Giselle.”

Everyone looks around to see Panna leaning forward, her head in her hands. “I just don’t see how what any of us believes matters. Lies or not, Corypheus is a real damn threat. We can’t match that with hope alone!” She pushes herself to stand up and walk away from the others with an agitated step.

“For so long,” Halla whispers. “For so long, I feared the Maker had abandoned me because I refused to join the Chantry or become a templar. Then I was spat back out of the Breach with this mark on my hand, and so many people said it was granted to me by Andraste. I wanted to believe I’d been given another chance, a chance to be the faithful person I never could be. And now…” She drops her face into her hands. “Now, I don’t know what to believe.”

Aiyan stands, blanket still wrapped around him, and Saraan helps him up. He starts hesitantly after Panna, and Saraan stops, looking past them to the rest of the camp. Josephine sits with her face in her hands by a fire, Leliana next to her. They do not touch. Cullen stands alone, arms folded and shoulders hunched against the cold. Cassandra bends over a map, not seeming to see it.

_We’re scattered,_ Saraan realizes. _Even if we’re all in one place._ She looks behind her, to where Halla stood and is walking past her, past Panna, who shrugs Aiyan’s hand away.

“Shadows fall, and hope has fled…”

Saraan turns as everyone looks up. Mother Giselle is walking slowly toward the center of camp, and she sings. “Steel your heart; the dawn will come. The night is long, and the path is dark. Look to the sky, for one day soon, the dawn will come.”

Two other voices join in: Leliana from beside the fire, and Halla with her back still turned. “The shepherd’s lost, and his home is far.” Other voices start to sing too, soldiers gathering around the Mother. “Keep to the stars; the dawn will come.”

Halla sings the words she remembers so well from childhood, words to which she had barely paid attention years ago. She can hear other familiar voices joining in: Cullen, Josephine, Cassandra. “The night is long, and the path is dark. Look to the sky, for one day soon, the dawn will come.”

Almost everyone sings now. Even Panna quietly murmurs along as Halla and Saraan join her and Aiyan, Halla wrapping an arm around the elf and Saraan’s hand landing reassuringly on Panna’s shoulder. “Bare your blade and raise it high! Stand your ground; the dawn will come!”

One brave agent is the first to kneel before the four survivors, and others follow suit in waves as the hymn continues and Halla, Saraan, Aiyan, and Panna stare around at them. “The night is long, and the path is dark. Look to the sky, for one day soon, the dawn will come!”

For a second, Halla swears she can hear Luke’s voice singing too.

“An army needs more than an enemy,” Mother Giselle murmurs as the last note dies down. “It needs a cause.”

The four survivors glance around at each other, shifting subtly closer to each other. They know what the Inquisition’s cause will be, and they know what their cause will be, and they know that they are not quite the same as Halla squeezes Aiyan once, Saraan clasps Panna’s shoulder tight, and Panna slips her hands into Halla’s and Aiyan’s.

**Author's Note:**

> there's a lot in between "survivors" and this but it mostly focuses on specific characters. i'll be making a fic or series for each character, following their story before, during, and after inquisition


End file.
